“Child of the Living Dead” – The Sins of Mason Thurlow vol 1.

Well, it’s too late to get the above as a freebie…it’s now gone up to the highly exhorbitant price of 99 cents…for a while, anyway. Then it will rise to its regular price of $2.99.

when I originally wrote “Child of the Living Dead,” I intended it to be a one-off. But somewhere between the first chapter and about the tenth, I realized it would make a good introduction for old Mason…and so the child in the book, Charles D’Arville, returned to life as a zombie, became Mason Thurlow.

As with all my novels, the setting – the late 18th-early 19th century – has been thoroughly researched, especially the slave rebellion of the late 1700’s, which is still the only successful slave uprising in history.

So little Charles, accidentally shot and killed as a child by his father, is brought back to life by a Mambo – a voodoo priestess – but with a slight difference: I allowed him to keep his brain. I mean, I could hardly create a series out of a central character who got around dragging his feet, staring vacantly into the distance and seeing nothing, and with his arms stuck out in front of him as if he was a walking clothes-line, could I?

So Charles is kidnapped by a negro practitioner of the Black Arts, and spends the next 17 years studying and learning all he can in those areas, then changes his name to Mason Thurlow, and is unleashed upon the world – Australia, principally – to do his dirty deeds and alla that stuff.

I really would appreciate it if some of you who read his exploits could email me and let me know what you think of him, his doings, and the stories I built around him. Good criticism is always valued by writers, as it lets us know what our readers like and what they don’t like, and sometimes even suggest new plots, ideas, and sometimes characters, to us to be used in creating new novels.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with good, constructive criticism – even if the criticism says something like: “I think you’re absolutely nutz and should be locked up!” That can even tell me the plot had such a powerful effect on the reader they were drawn to such a conclusion. And who knows? Maybe my intention was to give the impression I’m nutz, in which case it worked!

So go to it! Let me know what you think of Mason. And I do hope you continue following him as he seeks to gather souls to Satan (no, I am not a Satanist…I’m not even an atheist); and cause mayhem wherever he goes.